Posts tagged “Millcreek Canyon Utah”

I can’t assume that it’s a body memory, as my body only made this particular venture once, exactly two years ago this weekend, although I had been on various parts of the trail several times over the years, but this occasion, this hike, has been floating around in my mind for the past few weeks and I decided to take a look at the photos again. I won’t present an entire gallery or series of images as I did after taking the hike, but I will share a couple of photographs that I find to be particularly appealing and representative of the beauty of the region.

The above image is but a fragment of what must have been acres and acres of wildflowers that were covering the south and western facing slope of Mount Raymond. When I was sitting in the saddle of the mountains in the below image, the deeper cup shaped spot to the left of the highest points (the Twin Peaks), one week later, I could still visualize the yellow blanket of wonderfulness that I was standing beside as I made these two photos…even though I was probably six or more miles away.

…is not necessarily a bad thing. My son and I had just completed the half circle trail around the base of Mt Raymond, the prominence toward the right of the image, and were making our way down Bowman Fork and back into Millcreek Canyon. The slope where you can see my son walking is down from another mountain feature that has been named “Gobbler’s Knob” because of the wild turkeys that used to be found in the area.

As I was going through my back-log of blog posts this morning, I came across John M. Smith’s post, Bluebells and Beech, and remembered that I was going to do a similar post on some Utah wildflowers that I had noticed after viewing Andy Hooker’s post, Bluebells 2013.

My older son and I were on the way to one of our Sunday morning hiking destinations, walking the Pipeline Trail in Millcreek Canyon, just east of Salt Lake City proper. While I have walked this trail more than a dozen times over the past few years, I have never noticed the profusion of a single type of wildflower like I did on this particular morning….and it was too good to resist…taking a break in the early part of the hike to kneel in the wild grass and flowers for a few minutes to take a few (?) pictures…..

USWildflowers.com identifies these little beauties as being Dwarf Waterleaf, Bullhead Waterleaf…or Cat’s Breeches…with the scientific name of Hydrophyllum capitatum, for those of you interested in such things. I’m sorry I can’t name the trees…but here you are anyway with the blanket of spring wildflowers on a beautiful Spring morning….as my son and I were heading to our own version of Sunday services……

I have been up here six or seven times over the last couple of years, but never under conditions such as these. The mountains had received somewhere between one and two and a half feet of new snow over the last four days…and while, yes, I am ready for true spring like the rest of us, I couldn’t believe the beauty of the snowy mountains and trees while I was out there. So here you are, more snowy pictures from Salt Lake City, Utah, USA…I hope you enjoy them as much as I do…..

A couple of weeks ago, I was out hiking the Desolation Trail in Millcreek Canyon, just east of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. I wasn’t too far up the trail, either in time or distance, when right after I turned for a switchback, I noticed a shiny, golden-beaded necklace type thing hanging from one of the smaller trees just off the trail.

I think the only thing that would have been more surprising is if the door had suddenly opened and someone stepped out to say “hello.”